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Do you know many people who walk around with a Sony Discman and a wallet of CDs? As the Apple iPod reaches its 10th birthday (October 23, 2011), it’s safe to say the iPod and MP3 are technologies that won’t fade like the MiniDisc player. But virtually every one of the 12 million cars sold in the US this year has a CD player standard. On most, a USB jack is optional, unavailable, or only on the higher trim lines.

Here are the five most common excuses — sorry, reasons — why it’s so hard to get a USB jack in your car. There are similar rationalizations for why you don’t get Bluetooth standard in your car even though everyone has a cellphone and the majority of the population is covered by hands-free laws.

1. Many of our customers prefer CDs. That’s simply a barefaced lie, unless you’re the product manager for the Lincoln Town Car. Remember, the MP3 format is about 15 years old, and MP3 players date to around 1997, which is when the CD player pretty much passed the 1970s cassette player in the dashboard. You hear this excuse a lot especially from the Big Three automakers and wonder where they find their focus groups. Maybe they rented the AOL dial-up customer list.

2. We’ve got an iPod adapter: the line-in jack. Steve Jobs was responsible for this nonsense when he talked about the iPod having more than 90% market penetration in cars. As a fallback, the line-in jack is fine. But to motorists, the only acceptable MP3 player adapter has to be one that shows the artist-song-album info on your radio faceplate and also recharges the device. Only the USB jack can do that. Jobs was a genius, but on this topic at least, he was a BS artist, too.

3. It costs too much. Give the automakers partial credit here. Putting an auto-grade, single-disc CD player in the dash costs less than $25. A single USB jack and simple radio-faceplate interface isn’t all that expensive, either, but it gets costly to add bells and whistles. There’s one set of rules to follow for most MP3 players or music sticks, and a second set to gain Apple’s approval, especially if you want the digital music to be passed to the car for decoding. (If your car has an adapter that plugs into USB and line-in simultaneously, the iPod is delivering analog music to the car.) So Ford Sync, with voice input, and royalties to pay to Microsoft and Nuance, is harder to roll into the base price. Though when it’s not standard it’s getting cheaper; Ford charges $295 now not $395, and that includes Bluetooth.

4. We’ll get hurt on satisfaction surveys. If somebody is used to having a CD player, they’ll squawk on the next J.D. Power satisfaction survey when the CD is replaced by a USB jack. Conversely, people who’d prefer USB over the shiny silver disc haven’t yet thought about using the Power Initial Quality Survey to sound off.

5. We’re scared to go first. Actually, no automaker says this. But you can see the fear in their eyes: “Us leap first? You gotta be kidding. How about if we offer bigger chrome wheels instead?” Dozens of book authors, mostly recently Bob Lutz in “Car Guys vs. Bean Counters,” talk about the groupthink and cautiousness that pervades the auto industry. More cupholders or chrome dubs, that’s a no-brainer.

There’s also fear of moving ahead now because of the current climate in Washington and the insurance industry opposing technology that might be linked to driver distraction. Note that the current transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, has been a zealot on this. There’s a lot to be said that people are going to bring their iPods and smartphones into the car regardless, so dashboard integration could actually reduce driver distraction.

That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news. We’re close to the tipping point, as Malcolm Gladwell calls it, when a new technology becomes universal. Here we’re talking not about MP3 players becoming universal but automakers sensing the time for stalling has ended, and if they don’t put a USB player in the dash, they face backlash and defection to other automakers.

Ford has been a leader with Sync. The MP3 jack, Bluetooth, and voice recognition package is being emulated by other automakers now. Ford first offered Sync in 2008 on the Ford Focus, an okay-not-great compact car, and it attracted buyers who otherwise would have bought elsewhere. And here’s another lesson: When a Ford without Sync winds up on a dealer lot, it takes about twice as long to sell.

If you’re shopping for cars, ask the sales associate if the car comes with a USB jack. If he says yes, ask, “Only one?” Don’t lower your expectations. And if you want low comedy, pull out your iPod and say, “Can you show me how it works?” The auto industry is moving ahead, slowly, but sometimes it seems like progress is measured in inverse dog years.

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By the time car makers enshrine the Apple standard (eliminating every other manufacturer of player, d/t proprietary technology), the technology will be obsolete. Streaming music is/will be the new standard and car players will either interface with a smart phone or “the cloud.” Player price points will include different options, such as user-defined buffer sizes.

Oh my… that’s awesome. Is that for real? Were there actually cars with record players?

Anonymous

Yes– the catch was they only played a proprietary record size– Bigger than a 45, but smaller than a 78. And the Music selection was strictly ‘Old School’. All selected by the Auto Industry engineers. Absolutely nothing that was considered ‘Pops’.

The user support requirements for adding a USB connector are significant. if all you want is to use USB as a power connector for charging, you have to provide sufficient wattage to meet user expectations. Adding media service to the end of the wire involves licenses, royalties, decoders, a processor, documentation and user support staff online and or forums. Its not cheap.
If all you want is a USB charger you can get a 2.1 Amp dual USB adapter that plugs into the cigarette lighter for < $20

Anonymous

MP3 is not CD quality. See http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd

Exactly. I really wish these guys would understand that. Mp3 is, was, and always SHALL be a lossy codec, no matter what the bit rate it’s encoded at. Furthermore, not all Mp3 encoders are created equal, and two Mp3’s encoded at the same bitrate with two different encoders can sound very different in terms of quality.

There’s no reason it has to be mp3, then. Most “mp3” players will actually play a variety of file types, like flac and ogg. Honestly I just want a line in to be standard in cars. I don’t care if my music name is on the faceplate, I just want to be able to play my music. Then I could play any format I want, lossy or not.

All this is based on the assumption that everyone purchasing/leasing a newer car owns an iPod. Or uses one regularly. I for one have a VW that has the built in jack for an iPod and the audio system handles it very nicely but I’ve only used it once. I know family members and friends that don’t own iPods but definitely own CDs. It’s nice to have iPod connectivity IN ADDITION to the CD player but it’s not time yet to replace the CD player entirely (as standard equipment, I guess you could offer an option of radio/iPod w/out CD player for those that live with their Apple products).

I think that car makers should work with the phone makers and produce a new standard. My cell phone has a USB and and HDMI out. Imagine if the care could interface with my phone not just for Music but also for navigation and other apps as well. Have it interface to the larger bilt in screen and maybe even a GPS receiver “Yes my phone has one but the one in the car can have a larger antenna” Each car company could have it’s own app or even better make the car part of the API of the OS so you could pick any in car app you want.
They will not like it because it will mean that they do not get to sell $3000 in car nav and infotainment system.s

Buy whatever car you want, and install a new stereo. Problem solved. You could even get an iPod FM transmitter for about $10 on Amazon if you want to save money.

Anonymous

You can keep the usb jack and the iPod for yourself and keep your an apple fanboy shit while your at it. I use a USB pendrive and an SDcard with my radio and I don’t want anything else. There’s no need to be spending hundreds for an iPod if i can buy a cheap and simpler auto system with usb and SD card support and a kit of good speakers with the extra money – now that’s a good investment.

I rent cars all the time, usually full size models for business, and the line-in jacks work less than half of the time. It seems like USB jacks could be an even more problematic implementation.

Are these jacks exclusively used to play music files off of ipod type players or are they also designed to play and display audio files on portable hard drives as well? I recently plugged my portable drive into a 2011 Dodge Charger with a display screen and received an error message.

Al Barkat

Hey Bill Howard, Thank you! Great article. The right thing is to kick ass real hard. Also ask for CarMacbook. Yes built in “Mac-in-the-CAR”. Mac-in-the-CAR!!! Mac-in-the-CAR!!! Mac-in-the-CAR!!!

Minidiscs are not faded away in my life. I use them still today and love them to death. I HATE IPODS and will never own nor use that piece of crap technology. If a Ipod was in a new car i have bought i will have the dealership REMOVE it ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!, or i will rip it out of the car myself. I still purchase and use cds today. If cds where gone, then i won’t be able to get new music. No cd no music! I put my foot down on this, i promise you. I don’t download! MP3 and Ipods suck!

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